PoA Chapter Seven

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Malfoy returns to class acting as if he’s the survivor of some heroic battle. Which only Harry actually is, btw.

Even more shocking, Malfoy is marginally interested in girls when he plays the part of stoic sufferer to Pansy. Draco’s such a Mama’s boy.

Snape tells the class to settle down and Harry and Ron indignantly think about how if they’d walked in late they’d have gotten detention because Malfoy’s allowed to get away with anything in Snape’s class. Okay, hold on. No he isn’t. Nobody is. The Trio’s actually probably got a worse record in Snape’s class than Malfoy does—he likes Snape so he behaves.

And here, he hasn’t actually done anything wrong. Even if Snape would have given detention to Harry and Ron here, he’d have been wrong to do so. So it’s not like Malfoy’s getting away with anything.

Malfoy does display enough intelligence to annoy Ron. But that doesn’t take much.

Draco drawls to Snape that he needs something else done so Harry has to do it. If I was Harry or Ron here I’d have started laughing too by this point. Draco’s being a dick, but just the little stinker kind. Ron and Harry react to him like he’s being evil.

This book is generally a favorite because the Sirius reveal is great. But that gives JKR the problem of having no real villain, since Sirius isn’t trying to hurt Harry and neither is Peter. So she comes up with the Buckbeak story instead. Only the Buckbeak story is a non-issue, because it’s basically the story of an inept guy given a teaching position through favoritism who shouldn’t be hiding behind a bunch of kids to save his ass anyway. And that means the villain role falls to a kid whose crime is making a mistake in class and being unsympathetic about the consequences. Even the innocent animal isn’t innocent since it attacks Draco for the same reasons everyone else in canon does.

Harry’s shaking with anger now because Draco says his father’s made complaints about Hagrid. Even if I didn’t like Draco I couldn’t think of this as some huge injustice that Hagrid’s job is in trouble, especially when I know Hagrid is a bad teacher who can’t be fired because of Dumbledore.

This is why the series often depends on seemingly unimportant things like loving Hagrid. If you don’t see Hagrid being fired any differently than Harry sees Trelawney being fired, it’s hard to get worked up.

Oh! Here’s that big moment where Snape threatens to poison Trevor and totally would have done it too because he’s evil! I really don’t think the scene’s meant to be taken as seriously as Ron and Harry take everything in it. Even little kids get that Snape isn’t really going to poison the toad. In the next book he’s threatening to poison everybody.

Seamus reports Sirius has been sighted by a Muggle who thinks he’s just an ordinary criminal. Which he actually is. Okay yeah, he’s a wizard, but get over yourselves, guys. There are Muggles who have killed more people at once than Sirius.

I love the way Malfoy’s such a pariah amongst the heroes that whenever he’s needed as part of the story he’s always got to be forcing himself into a conversation between people who are glaring at him and wishing him dead.

Luckily Malfoy’s face is always twisting into various positions of “malicious,” “mean,” “nasty,” and “malevolent” so we know they’re just reacting to him like the cowardly demon he is. He should really be perched on Harry’s shoulder like an imp.

Can’t help but imagine what Ron and Harry look like from Draco’s pov. I suppose various stages of “morally outraged,” “righteously angry,” “heroically protective,” and “Crucio-level indignant.”

Draco’s bad jokes always have to over-played so Harry can notice (as if he’s not always checking Draco out), but give him a really dramatic moment and the boy knows how to play it just right. He draws Harry into the truth about Sirius “quietly,” “breathing” his lines instead of speaking them. And people wonder why H/D is so popular?

Still, why is Draco the only person telling Harry this story? Besides the obvious meta-reasons? Just like in GoF, Draco’s actually surprised that he knows more about Harry’s life than Harry does. Presidents of the fanclub probably often do!

Also, Hermione pops in and out of the scene after class, because she just Time Traveled. Despite knowing that Time Turners exist, and that they live in a world of magic, it doesn’t occur to Ron to think Hermione’s done anything magical. After all, it wouldn’t be OOC for her to have started Apparating early. (If Hermione heard that theory we all know she’d tell them you can’t Apparate inside Hogwarts.)

Lupin tells them to put away their books, which by now we know is code for “good teacher.”

Lupin mentions Filch, whom the narrator tells us is constantly waging a war against the students. By grumbling at them as he cleans up their messes.

Can’t wait until Harry starts heroically hexing the guy in a few years to put him in his place. Uppity squib janitors are the worst!

Snape leaves the teacher’s lounge when they come in, taking care to get in a last shot at Neville for letting Hermione help him in Potions. Well, really so that Lupin has a sense of what’s going on with Neville so he can give him some of that confidence that is the basis for all ability in good people.

Lupin might have thought he was out of practice humiliating Snape but 20 years later, Moony’s still got it!

Harry finds it hard to answer with Hermione bobbing up and down on the balls of her feet and waving her hand next to him. Hee! Hermione was so cute. A little young for 14 (which she would be by this point) but still.

I once did a post on how books 3-6 are like one book for each house? And this one’s totally the Gryffindor book, so there’s a big theme about courage. Hagrid’s class required some already, but now we’ve got a Boggart, which is pretty entirely about being able to laugh at fear.

A lot of people used to point to Snape’s being Neville’s boggart as proof that Snape really was Satan as a teacher, since he’s beating out every other fear for a kid whose parents were tortured into insanity. To me it more just says that Neville didn’t witness his parents’ torture and he’s had a relatively normal life so has a normal kid fear of a mean teacher.

I love that Harry can’t even think of how to make a Dementor less frightening. Because Nazgul rip-offs are just so terrifying they can’t be funny. Start with a pair of tap shoes and a hoodie and work from there Harry, jeez. Family Guy got a whole character out of it.

Heh. That reminds me of a LOTR fic. I think it was called “The Littlest Nazgul” where Frodo did become a wraith. The other Nazgul were annoyed at having to get him a black pony, and the fact that he called the pony Mushroom.

Seamus’ greatest fear is of course a banshee. If you cut Seamus open every Irish stereotype in the world would spill out.

Lupin’s boggart was the moon, of course.

And again with the courage theme, Harry’s still obsessing over his humiliating faint on the train and thinks Lupin kept him from facing the boggart because he didn’t trust him not to faint again.

I’m going to give some props to Lavender here for wondering why Lupin’s afraid of crystal balls. And JKR for calling attention to it without really calling attention to it.


Things happening twice:
While Ron and Hermione don’t get why, Harry becomes actually interested in Draco when he starts talking about taking action in revenge for your family, which will happen again in HBP.
Harry will also have the urge to show off for Cho the same way Malfoy is here. It just takes him a couple of years.
A Boggart shows up again in OotP.
Neville seems to have as much trouble as Draco when it comes to listening in class, and Potions has been known to also cause violent accidents. Only here it’s not Neville’s fault.

It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
Lupin’s boggart
Since Lavender brings our attention to it, and we hear about everyone else’s, it’s got to be something.
Status: Fired with a mighty bang!
Malfoy’s cryptic remarks
He says if it were his family he wouldn’t just go to school like a good boy.
Status: Fired—he actually would take some action.

OMG, Hermione didn’t get to face her boggart!
What if she has to face one in the future?
Status: Fired, but harmlessly. I can’t remember if it’s at the end of this year or during her OWLS, but she can’t do it right. She should have just thought to make McGonagall’s face break out in pustules that said “Old Maid” or something.





Misdirected Answering
I know the Boggart class was an elaborate set up for a couple of things, but I don’t remember Boggarts ever really being important. Especially once the big tragic scene in OotP points out that adult fears tend to be a lot harder to make funny.

Jabootu Score: 1

Comments

[eri1980b.livejournal.com]

Ah, the good old days, when I could have respect for Lupin even if he's taking a swipe at Snape in his first lesson. I never noticed it before but on rereading he comes across a bit passive agressive or is that just me? Also, hothing mentioned to Harry by Lupin or anybody else for that mater about Lupin's relations with Harry's family etc. One could almost say he was distancing himself from the whole affair.

Actually, what is Lupin actually teaching here? Is it DADA or is it just a masterclass on how to deal with Dark Magical Creatures? In fact, I would say a lot of this shold be covered in COMC but of course Hargid can't do it.

Yes Draco's being a complete numpty in this chapter but really, is he any more different than what any other kid would do in his situation. My nephew kicked a lamp post playing football the other day and managed to wangle a day off school because of it. I just don't get the "evil" vibes I think we are supposed to be getting.

On Neville's fear of Snape - didn't we all have a teacher that scared the bejeesus out of us? I still remember mine and he was terrifying right up until sixth form when I realised it was all a front to get through the working day and really he was a pussycat. I was even brave enough to tell him so. That is how I've always read this situation; Neville's too scared of Snape to see that he is just another person like everyone else after all.

How come Malfoy is the only one bringing up Sirius' relationship to Harry? Seriously, wizards don't gossip? Ok, Hermione won't know and Ron may have been silenced by his mum but Seamus and Neville would have heard something! Maybe they just didn't like Harry enough to care to tell him...

"Heh. That reminds me of a LOTR fic. I think it was called “The Littlest Nazgul” where Frodo did become a wraith. The other Nazgul were annoyed at having to get him a black pony, and the fact that he called the pony Mushroom." - I NEED to read this fic! I have had such a crappy day and this made me laugh out loud.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I never noticed it before but on rereading he comes across a bit passive agressive or is that just me?

Passive-aggressive is Remus' style. We will see more examples of that in the next chapter when Severus brings him the potion. I'd say even his way of guilt-tripping Harry into giving him the Map and refraining from further sneaking to Hogsmeade is done in a passive-aggressive way.

On Neville's fear of Snape - didn't we all have a teacher that scared the bejeesus out of us? I still remember mine and he was terrifying right up until sixth form when I realised it was all a front to get through the working day and really he was a pussycat. I was even brave enough to tell him so. That is how I've always read this situation; Neville's too scared of Snape to see that he is just another person like everyone else after all.

Yes, I had one of those too. I found it unpleasant to sit in his class. Part of it was his body language, part of it were his tirades about what was personally wrong with each one of us and another part was the way he quizzed us on details with tangential bearing to the topic. One day I talked to him after class and told him how I felt. I think I managed to surprise him a bit. He gave me a long lecture about the difference between physical fear and moral fear and how inferior I was to fear him that way. Somehow that put an end to the problem.

[eir-de-scania.livejournal.com]

Snape would have stared down his nose at you, and said you were imagining things. The rest of the year, at least, you would get snarky comments about being a cowardly sissy.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think Lupin's very passive-aggressive--I sort of love it about him. Unfortunately in later books I think it tips too far with Harry calling him out for abandoning his wife and kid by volunteering for the war effort (which is incredibly weird). But in this book he comes across to me more as a guy who is always pleasant because he doesn't think he has the security to be anything else so it's become part of his personality, but he finds little ways to let his hostility out.

Lupin is teaching DADA. Third year seems to be all about the monsters.

This is definitely one of the examples that shows why I could never consider Draco a real bad guy. He's being a total little stinker but I just feel like at some point it should tip over into being funny. Maybe I've just watched way too many TV shows where eventually this kid would be an accepted member of the group--like yeah, he's a pain in the neck, but he's *our* pain in the neck.

Yeah, I definitely think Neville's fear here is making Snape more scary than he is. Not that he doesn't have reason to do that. Snape does yell, he insults him, he puts him on the spot. I completely sympathize with Neville. He's just not actually in danger. I think as an adult he would laugh about how Snape used to terrify him.

I remember Frodo and Mushroom getting stuck in a shrub at one point.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, third year is all about the monsters, yes. Between Lupin's DADA and Hagrid's CoMC the whole year is about the monsters. (About saving the monsters, actually.) But that's just because it's Harry's 3rd year. I'm reasonably certain that Percy's 7th year DADA class was all about the monsters too. And Ginny's 2nd year DADA, as well as the twins' 5th.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Harry thinks of Remus as a great teacher, but aside from his private anti-dementor lessons with Harry, how useful was his teaching? In DH the kids are camping for months and the only monsters they ever run across are the dementors, and only because Voldemort persuaded them to leave Azkaban, normally they aren't out and about. I suppose some of the purebloods have boggarts, ghouls and other such creatures in their homes - like we see at 12GP, or the Weasley's ghoul. But it appears there aren't that many red-caps and hinkypunks in the British countryside.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Which makes it all the stranger that Patronuses are considered "too advanced" for people in school. They're practically the most useful spell we see in canon and they're not taught.

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

The same reason normal schools don't offer lockpicking lessons. Why would you teach children how to attack prison guards?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Exactly. It is easy to forget that the situation with dementors that we see in HBP and DH was an anomaly. This was the first time since who knows how long that dementors were out and about outside the control of Ministry officials.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

But you'd think Dumbledore would disagree. Prisoners in Azkaban don't have wands so aren't able to defend themselves even if they know how. And we see that when Dementors are let out into the real world they're just as likely to attack innocent people as they are to attack the guilty.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Until Voldemort's return the dementors were always strictly under Ministry supervision (with the exception of their presence at Hogwarts in POA that was Ministry-approved but not very carefully supervised). The only wanded people who dealt with them were a subset of Ministry employees - those who dealt with prisoners before trial, those who supervised them on their way to Azkaban or from Azkaban to any hearings etc and any humans who had dealings with Azkaban. (Who prepares food or gives medical care to prisoners? House-elves? Why don't wizards use house-elves from breaking out of Azkaban?) Only those few people needed to know how to conjure a Patronus. If the general population knew how to conjure them, wouldn't people use the ability to attempt to break friends and relatives out of Azkaban?

At some point Dumbles invented the messenger-Patronus and taught it to (some? all?) Order members.

Then Voldemort returns and in his graveyard speech promises to recruit the dementors. In attempt to beat him to the punch Dumbles tries to convince Fudge to remove the dementors (so that some other solution to holding the prisoners in can be found and the dementors can be kept out of Voldemort's reach), but by then he has already lost Fudge's trust (IMO this happens when Dumbles breaks Sirius out of the castle at the end of POA). Now is the time to teach kids about fighting dementors - but he has Umbridge teaching DADA. Think she might do that? The following year Severus does teach a method to fight dementors, though it is a different one.

So I suppose fighting dementors was never on the DADA curriculum because nobody expected them to be all over the country. I wonder how many Hogsmeade villagers were attacked by dementors during POA.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

I once read a really nice Lupin POV fanfic of PoA. One of the things that made it outstanding was that the author actually had Lupin teaching different aspects of DADA to different years. Third year was concentrating on Dark Creatures, but fifth year (the twins' year) was all about creative spellwork (as I recall). Lupin offered points to any of the fifth years who came up with a new piece of magic--and there's a nice little scene where Ginny came in with something she made up (it was still sweet Ginny, though, no mocking or physical violence).

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I'm not a bit surprised. Passive-aggression notwithstanding, Lupin was a intreguing character and it's easy to like him. There used to be a lot of fine fics that he starred in (usually playing the Voice of Reason when needed.)

For the more angsty/edgy end of the scale I quite admire A.J. Hall's 'Mark of the Beast'.

[elanor-x.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the late comment, but do you still have a link? The fic sounds so cool.

[sunnyskywalker]

yeah, he's a pain in the neck, but he's *our* pain in the neck

Draco = Hermione?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

They do start out as the two people who get on Harry and Ron's nerves. One of them proves herself and becomes the bff; one becomes the villain.

[lissa2.livejournal.com]

"How come Malfoy is the only one bringing up Sirius relationship to Harry? seriously, wizards don't gossip?

I wanted to ask this question for some time: Is "character X doesn't know something that logically he should have known a long time ago" a common element in children literature? or is it just JKR that's notorious for doing that?
Is there anyone here who's an expert in children literature and can answer this? thanks.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I'm an expert but I've worked a lot in it in different capacities and I would say no, it's not a staple any more than it is anywhere else.

I would say that it's maybe easier to get away with in kid's lit because there's so many things that kids by definition don't know. A lot of things that adults would consider common knowledge a kid wouldn't have come across yet. I think it's actually really cool the way JKR uses this a lot of the time, like the fact that it's really *neat* that Harry learns that these random adults are his father's friends and that they were kids together just like him and his friends. But it strains things when they're also notorious criminals that everyone is terrified of and yet nobody ever manages to spill the beans to Harry. And Harry doesn't do any research on his own about it either.

[lissa2.livejournal.com]

"I think it's actually cool the way JKR uses this a lot of the time"
I just think that she used it too many times, to the point that it became ridiculous and lazy. look how many things fall under this category (is there an actual official term for that?): Sirius being James's best friend and betraying him, the Snape-Lily friendship,Aberforh being the barman at the "Hog's head" (c'mon how could that not be common knowledge among the students?),The Thestrals (how could that not be common knowledge among the students?),The Ravenclaw ghost, the wand-alliance rule (how could Harry study DADA six years and not know that?), the fact that Sirius was related to Draco, Narcissa and Bellatrix, Grindelwald, Dumbledore's background and the fact that his family lived near the Potters (nobody in the WW knew that?), the Death-Eaters (Harry only learns about them during the QWC-after 3 years of learning DADA) the house elves (it seems unlikely that up until her forth year, Hermione didn't know there were house elves working in Hogwarts), Harry not knowing students from other houses or from other quidditch teams that he should know, Ginny's bedroom, Harry's son not realizing why everybody at the station stares at them...

"...like the fact that it's really neat that Harry learns that these random adults are his father's friends..."
Yes, but he could have learnt it in PS/SS. Or at least in the beginning of PoA.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's not so much weird that Harry doesn't know this at first because that's the whole point--he knows nothing. But since *so much* depends on exactly this there's a point where even Harry's disinterest can't cover it. Particularly when she also made Harry famous. That was part of the irony that it turned out this kid locked in a closet was a superstar, but a superstar would be meeting people who knew stuff about him and would tell him.

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

In Matilda, she doesn't know that Miss Trunchbull is Miss Honey's aunt. Although I can't imagine either of them talking about the connection. And Matilda doesn't talk to many of the older children, so maybe they know but she doesn't.